CTIA - The Wireless Association(R) and NeuStar Expand Common Short Code (CSC) Agreement, Enabling Broader Appeal to Consumer Brands

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CTIA - The WirelessAssociation(R) and NeuStar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), a leading provider of essentialclearinghouse services to the global communications and Internet industry,today announced the planned expansion of the highly successful Common ShortCode (CSC) program. NeuStar operates the CSC Registry under agreement withthe CTIA which serves as the CSC program administrator. Today, CSCs are five-digit numbers. Under the terms of the agreement,CTIA and NeuStar will expand the pool of available CSCs to include six-digitcodes in the CSC Registry, thus increasing the amount of usable CSCs to nearlyone million. CTIA and NeuStar plan to roll out this capability to potentialsubscribers in Spring 2006. Using CSCs, advertisers and content providers have been able to extendtargeted service offerings directly to the handsets of more than 200 millionmobile subscribers of participating wireless carriers. Examples of popularapplications include downloads of content such as ring-back tones and games;mobile search by text messaging; participation in mobile blogs, chat, polls,and quizzes; and subscriptions to news and weather alerts. According to thelatest CTIA research, over seven billion text messages were sent during June2005-a 154% increase over the previous year. In addition to the expanded pool offered by six-digit CSCs, five-digitCSCs will continue to be supported, and new five-digit codes will remainavailable.